


You Were Born Into A Strange World

by JustJasper



Category: Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Childbirth, Established Relationship, M/M, Mild Gore, Relationship Discussions, Unresolved Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-05-09
Updated: 2015-05-09
Packaged: 2018-03-29 19:44:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3908272
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustJasper/pseuds/JustJasper
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When the team meets a woman about to give birth on a Hinterlands road, Sera, Dorian and Cadash are useless. Iron Bull, luckily, is not.</p><p>The event inspires misunderstandings and doubt.</p>
            </blockquote>





	You Were Born Into A Strange World

**Author's Note:**

> Contains semi-explicit descriptions of the birth process.

“ **It is important to keep in mind that our bodies must work pretty well, or their wouldn't be so many humans on the planet.” - Ina May Gaskin**

They'd just avoided having to put down a bear a few miles from camp in the Hinterlands, and Iron Bull was only a little disappointed. A bear could be a rewarding kill, but he didn't have any interest in killing an animal for no reason when it was no real threat to anybody. Sera and the Inquisitor were talking a few paces ahead, and Dorian had fallen into step beside him.

“If you're going to do that, I need you to wake me up earlier.”

Bull frowned down at the mage. “Do what?”

“You know what.”

“I don't.” Untrue; Bull did have a vague idea, though.

Dorian huffed, glancing at Sera and Cadash, then slowed his pace some. Bull slowed his own to match. “Touch me like that.”

“Like what?” Bull just about managed keeping a grin at bay.

“You know,” he muttered, then when Bull said nothing, “your hand on my stomach, fiddling with my hair trail...” Dorian seemed to suppress a shiver at recounting the gesture.

“Liked that, huh?”

“You can't do that five minutes before we have to be up and out.” Dorian was indignant, and a little pink at the cheeks. “I need at least a good half hour to appreciate whatever delightful thing you could turn that into.”

“I'll remember that, next time.” The promise was unspoken, but understood if the gleam in Dorian's eye was anything to go by.

“Hey!” Sera shouted, bringing their attention front and centre. “On the road!”

Some way down the tree-lined path there was a woman hobbling along the roadside, clutching a very swollen stomach. Cadash set off at a jog towards her, and the others followed.

“Are you alright?” The Inquisitor asked when they'd reached, though clearly the woman wasn't. Her tan skin looked clammy, her auburn hair was stuck to her sweaty forehead, and the skirt of her blue dress looked wet, and all signs pointed to her waters having broken.

“I'm fine,” she said, right before she doubled with pain, huffing for her breath and groaning. “I'm fine. I'm going to Redcliffe, I need a healer.”

“How long have you been labouring?”

She groaned, making a miserable sound. “All night. I need a healer, I haven't got anyone else.”

Sera and Dorian were exchanging worried glances, both on edge. Cadash didn't look much better, brow knitted with worry. Bull seemed to be the only one who didn't think the situation looks terrible; sure, a pregnant woman walking alone wasn't great, but if she'd been labouring all night and was still standing, that was a good sign.

“What's your name?” he asked, and she squeaked when she looked at him, clearly taking in the size of him. There was little else he could do but make sure he sounded kind to make himself seem less intimidating though, and he gave her a smile.

“A-Alice.”

“I'm The Iron Bull, this is Dorian, Sera, and Inquisitor Cadash.”

“We'll get you to Redcliffe,” Cadash said.

“I can't. I can't, it hurts, Maker, it hurts so much. The baby's coming!”

“Can we make it in time?” Dorian asked, and Sera looked ready to flee at a sprint.

“I don't know,” Cadash admitted, looking at Alice. It was a strange thing to see their Inquisitor unsure what to do.

“I've seen births before.” Bull turned away from the team. “Hey,” he said in what he hoped was his most soothing voice, as he bent so he wasn't towering over the woman, “We need to know how far along you are, okay?”

She nodded, lips pressed into a thin, worried line.

“Okay, I need you to feel how open you are,” he told her. “Put your hand under your dress, see how many fingers you can put inside yourself.”

She looked stricken at the request, eyes going wide and shaking her head a little.

“I know it sounds weird, but we need to get an idea how much time we have.”

“Okay,” she nodded, and backed up against a tree for support and she fumbled a hand under her dress. Bull cast his eyes around at the rest of them; they were all watching with various levels of anxiety.

“I don't know.” She whined, pulling Bull's attention back to her, “I don't know, I can't do it, I don't know what to do!”

“Okay.” He gripped her shoulders, then ran his big hands over her arms, relieved to feel her relax a little under the motion. “Then someone else needs to look.”

He looked around, and Dorian immediately began shaking his head.

“I can't.”

“Dorian, it's just a vagina.”

“I know that,” he hissed, “I'm not _afraid_ of vaginas! It's not a monster, I know that, but I still have precisely zero firsthand experience.”

“Nope,” Sera piped up, arms hugged around herself. “No, nope, can't do it, I have lots of experience with fun parts and I can't-”

He turned to Cadash last, who was tapping her thumbnail against her chin anxiously. “Bull, I think you're the best one to do this. I've never seen anyone give birth. I'll help if I can.”

He turned back to Alice, who looked very worried by the exchange. “I'm going to help you,” he told her. “Can you trust me?”

She nodded immediately, and whether she meant it or was desperate, it mattered little in the face of things.

“If I can look at you, I might not even have to use my fingers. But you're having a baby, so I can't say it'll be comfortable.”

“Got that.” she managed a weak laugh.

Cadash gave up her cloak and Bull got Alice to lay down so he could spread her legs and see how far along she was, blocking the sight of her from the others with his body. He pressed his hand against her stomach, mapping out the position of the unborn inside, making sure the head was where it was meant to be.

“You're doing real well.” She wailed with another contraction, grabbing at the cloak, and Bull turned to Cadash. “She's not going to make it to Redcliffe, she's almost ready to drop. Could take ten minutes, could take a few hours, there's no way to tell, but we can't get her to Redcliffe like this.”

“Shit,” Sera said. “Shit shit shit!”

“It's fine,” Bull said to Alice, who flinched at each swear pouring from the elf's mouth, “I know it's scary, but you're actually doing really well. Everything looks good, you're almost ready.”

“I can't! I can't have a baby out here!”

Bull helped her to stand. “You can, I promise, you're going to be okay.”

“Shouldn't you keep her lying down?” Dorian asked.

A snort of laughter left him at the idea. “Really, none of you have seen a single birth? Can you guys get clean cloths, warm water?”

“Where exactly are we meant to boil water out here?” Dorian snapped, and the level of anxiety his three companions were showing would have been funny if it wasn't making poor Alice even more nervous.

“You're a fucking _mage_.”

“Yes-” Dorian blustered, probably going red if Bull had looked, “well, I am, so-”

He could hear them scrambling about, and tried to tune them out, so he could focus on the woman in distress.

“I'm a mage, too,” she said. “A bloody apostate, I don't know what I was thinking, getting bloody knocked up when there's a bloody hole in the sky!”

Bull let her pace, watching her clutch at her belly. The longer she stayed standing, the easier it would be when the time came.

“I was going to see a healer to fix it, I knew I couldn't do this, but then I felt the quickening and I just couldn't anymore. Stupid, right? There was still time. I'm stupid, so stupid- Maker's breath!”

She hunched in pain, another contraction hitting her, and Bull reached out to steady her.

“Maker, I need to, I need-” she tugged at the lace at the front of her dress, and Bull knew her clothes were feeling restrictive and uncomfortable, had seen it before.

“You can get undressed if you want.”

“Well, you've already seen my bits, haven't you?” She laughed, almost hysterically, trying to tug her arms into the dress. Bull helped her free herself, barely undressed when she buckled with another wave of pain.

“You'll be ready to push soon, I think,” he told her, checking her over. Aside from looking tired, she seemed to be healthy, carrying a good amount of weight for a lone apostate who had likely been fending for herself – and her unborn child – for a while.

“I can't stand much longer,” she whined. “Can I lie down?”

“If you want, but it'll hurt more. It'll be easier if you're standing, so when you push the baby can drop out easier. You could go hands and knees. Dorian,” he added, turning to the man who was managing to break through his focus, “stop swearing and pacing. Sit down until I need you.”

Bull nodded towards a rock nearby, and although Dorian looked ready to say something, he seemed to think better of it and went to sit on the rock, bowl of water rested on his knees, swirling a small fire glyph idly on the surface.

“Sera,” Bull said firmly, and she got the idea, making a show of huffing and going to sit next to him. “Boss-”

“Got it,” Cadash nodded, handing the arm full of cloth she was holding to Sera, then went to pace the perimeter of the area.

“Ignore them,” Bull told Alice, who had covered her breasts with her arms and was watching them. “They're good in a fight, even if they're not much help now.”

“You've done this before?” Alice asked, reaching out for his arm to support herself, breathless from her last contraction, but apparently at ease enough not to feel the need to hide herself when her attention was totally on him. “You a father?”

“Nah, not really.” He shrugged, because it was a little too complicated to talk about the Qun's breeding system at that moment. He pulled free the loose tie from Alice's hair and turned her on the spot, so he could twist her hair into a quick braid in the short time they had before the next contraction, keeping it from getting in her face.

She bowed forward with a wail as the next surge crashed into her, holding hard onto the arm Bull had slung around her chest to make sure she didn't topple over.

“Should I push?!”

“Do you feel like you should? You've got to listen to your body, it'll be easier if you work with what it's telling you.”

“I don't know, I don't know! Maybe? I think I should.”

“Okay, try pushing with the next wave of pain, that's when your body is trying to push the baby out itself.” He turned her around again, then crouched in front of her. It was going to hurt his knees, he imagined, but he could deal with that. She got the idea, and braced her hands on his shoulders, legs set wide between his open knees. “You can grab the horns if you need to,” he offered, and she began to laugh weakly.

On the next contraction Alice began to push, gripping his shoulders hard and squatting, grunting with the effort.

“Breathe, Alice,” he told her, putting his hands under her thighs so she could bear down against them. “Panting is good, just pant and push, your body will do the work, you're just helping it along. There we go, there we are, that was good.”

Alice whined and took deep breaths, and Bull looked sideways at the rest of the team. Sera was watching and biting her nails, while Dorian had the knuckles of one hand pressed to his mouth. Cadash was hovering beyond the tree line, watching the road.

It took several more attempts at pushing before things changed, when Alice's pain got so bad Bull had to ease one of her legs over his thigh so she could half-squat and brace against him.

“I'm going to touch you, okay?” he told her, running his hand over the inside of her thigh as warning. “I want to check if I can feel the baby's head; if the pain's getting worse, you could be crowning.”

Alice nodded, head lolling forward, and Bull carefully reached under her to feel her opening, and thankfully his suspicion was right. The up-tick in pain wasn't anything to worry about, but the sign that it was almost over.

“That's good, Alice, you're crowning, that's why it hurts so much. It's the biggest part of the baby's head. The next pushes are going to hurt like shit, but you're almost there.”

“Maker.” She whined between heaved breaths. “Your women, _maker_ , don't the horns hurt them?”

“We're only born with little horn nubs, they're soft at first.” He caught her gaze and smiling reassuringly. “You're doing really good.”

Mercifully, on the next wave Alice panted and gave short pushes, and Bull kept his hand below to feel the progress, feeling the baby's head inch out. Alice screamed and cried with the pain, holding onto Bull's shoulders and bearing down against his leg, but once Bull felt the baby's tiny head pass the confines of her body into his palm the downward force did the work, shoulders and arms and torso, then backside and legs and little feet, right into his waiting hands.

“You did it!” Bull lifted the baby up as it began to cry shrilly, apparently most displeased at being forced out of the comfortable womb. It was pink even under the bits of viscera and blood, and Alice managed to stand and take it into her arms.

“A little boy,” she breathed, relieved laugh bubbling up from her chest as she pressed him to her bosom. “He's okay?”

“Looks good.” Bull straightening up – his knees aching badly – and holding Alice at the waist in case her legs weren't quite as steady as they seemed. It was amazing, really, what a person could endure. “He's breathing well,” he said over the crying, “looks a nice lively colour.”

“Do you need a knife to cut the cord?” Sera piped up, and Iron Bull looked around to see both she and Dorian were up, ready to help.

“Give it a few minutes. C'mon Alice, sit down for me.” He eased her down onto her forgotten dress, long ruined by her waters and now blood. “You'll feel what seems like another birth pain soon, but it's just the afterbirth, it'll come a lot easier than the baby.”

“Should she be bleeding that much?” Dorian asked, hovering with the bowl of water.

“Looks fine, there's always blood. She did good.”

The whole mood of the group changed after that, nervous energy became excitable as Bull cut the umbilical cord and tied it off, Dorian offered Alice cloths and warm water to wipe down her new baby, and then wrapped him up in a swath of dry material. Bull helped her deliver the afterbirth and clean herself up, and after they'd wrapped the new mother in a collection of spare clothing from their packs, Bull hoisted Alice and her snuffling newborn into his arms to begin heading back to camp.

“If you're an apostate, you won't be safe in Redcliffe,” Cadash said. “The mages aren't welcome there anymore.”

“Where did they go?” Alice asked, leaning on Bull's chest and rearranging the blanket around her baby.

“They allied with the Inquisition. You could come back to Skyhold with us.”

“Skyhold is real? I'd heard humours... Inquisitor. That's who you are? I've heard. I- If my baby will be safe there, I'll come.”

“You'll be safe,” Cadash said.

“Thank you, Iron Bull,” Alice said, leaning up to put a chaste kiss against the edge of his jaw, before she settled against his solid bulk to rest.

As the evening rolled in they'd reached camp, and the healer had taken Alice and her baby to make sure they were well. After Iron Bull had shared the story with the gathered group, Sera, despite being little help during the event, was drinking to mark the baby's birth, adding her own embellishments with help from Varric as to what would make for the best story.

They could hear the laugher, chatter, and Blackwall asking Cole if he could hear the baby's thoughts, from their shared tent where Iron Bull sat on his bedroll with Dorian between his knees, magically warmed hand pressing into the skin of his bum knee.

“You were really good today.” Dorian leant against his chest, and Bull hummed, kissed the top of Dorian's head. “When did you deliver another baby?”

“I helped Stitches deliver one a couple of years ago. Helped another healer once in Seheron. This was my first time playing Tama on my own.”

“You make an excellent midwife. The rest of us were rather useless.”

He shrugged. “You were. But I don't think anyone else would have been much help. Blackwall, maybe, he's probably delivered foals before. Seems the type.”

Dorian was quiet for a while, and massaged his thumb against Bull's knee.

“When she asked you if you were a father, you said 'not really'.”

Bull realised then there had been another motive for Dorian insisting on dragging Bull into the tent under the pretence of seeing to his knee, ignoring Varric and Sera's comments about them stealing away to the relative privacy of the tent.

“You know they breed us in the Qun, right? I did my turn a few times. No idea if it stuck, we don't get to know.”

“Doesn't it bother you?”

“No.”

“But you're potentially a father.”

“We don't have fathers under the Qun, we have donors. I never knew any different, Dorian. I don't know who sired or birthed me, only the Tamassran who raised me. They're the closest thing the Qun has to parents.”

Dorian went quiet again, leaning back on Bull's chest, hand idling on his knee. Bull leaned forward and rubbed his jaw along Dorian's, one hand moving to his belly and pressing over the leather there.

“Do you want to be?” Dorian said eventually, in an almost convincingly offhand way.

“Be what?”

“A father.”

“Why are you asking?”

“You'd be a good one,” Dorian murmured, and he seemed to deflate with the sentiment. “You were so good today. She went from scared of you, to trusting you with her life, her child's life, within the space of minutes.”

“Even the qunari was a better choice than you lot, today. You were useless, remember?”

“You're evading. Is that something you want?”

“If I was with someone who wanted them, I could be a father. Is that what you want, Dorian?” Bull asked, intrigued by the line of questions he was pursuing. “Do you want kids?”

“Don't, Bull!” Dorian shrugged away from him, turning and scooting backwards on the bedroll to put space between them. “It doesn't work like that, you can't um and ah about wanting children. You do, or you don't, or perhaps you don't know, but it doesn't depend on the circumstance you find yourself in.”

“Why? Why do you think it has to be like that?”

“Because it just is, Bull.” Dorian sighed. “Your feelings about something that big can't just change with the weather.”

Bull considered him. “Why is this bothering you? Do you want a child? If that's what you want, I can help-”

“No!” Dorian barked, his face caught between abject anger and threatening tears. “I don't want children, children don't want me, and I couldn't have them even if I wanted to. But you-” He took a long breath in through his nose. “If you can entertain the idea, then that probably means you want them, Bull. If you want a child, then this is pointless. I can't give you that, and I will not be the man who keeps you tied to something that keeps you from pursuing such a fundamental desire.”

“I want to make you happy, Dorian. I want to be good for you. If you want a kid, I want you to have that.”

“I don't want a child,” Dorian insisted, every word clipped. He scrubbed his face with his hands, then looked at Bull through his fingers. “I don't understand you.”

“You don't need to, if you're happy.”

“I am.” He smiled sadly. “But I want to. I want to understand you. How can you have no strong feelings either way, on something so big?”

“Not everyone does. Not even just ex-Qun Tal-Vashoth, but people in general. Kids aren't a make or break choice for everyone, for a lot of people they're just another way their lives can go, good or bad. You're not standing in the way of anything. I want what you want.”

Dorian let out a long breath, hand fluttering at his chest. “I didn't mean for this to be a fight.”

“A fight?” Bull smiled at him. “This was barely a scuffle.”

Dorian watched him for a moment, the sadness of his features subtle but obvious to Bull, and then it slid away as Dorian closed himself off. Iron Bull knew this had not been a resolution, only a withdrawal, but he truly didn't know if it would ever resolve in the way Dorian expected it to.

“Come on,” Dorian said, pushing himself up and heading for the flap in the tent, pulling on his boots. “Put those hideous trousers back on. We don't want to miss out on all the jokes at our expense, or miss them singing your praises.”

Bull watched Dorian leave, holding back a sigh until he was sure the man had walked away from the tent. He knew, of course, that Dorian didn't really understand Bull's motivations, could not understand that what Bull wanted was to be everything that the people he cared about needed. It was an unspoken point of contention in whatever this thing between them was, that what Bull wanted was dependant directly on what Dorian wanted, or the Inquisitor, or his Chargers. What was the point in wanting something if it served no purpose? There was no point in laughing with someone who didn't want you to make them laugh, or helping someone who didn't want you to help them, or loving someone who didn't want you to love them.

Of course, knowing what to give depended on knowing what the person needed and what they wanted, and as easy as he found Dorian to read in some aspects, it seemed that the more time they spent in each other's company, the muddier things became. He should stop it, he knew, step back to at least get his footing again. It wasn't good to be this unsturdy. He had yet to step back.

He followed Dorian soon after, wondering if a conversation about hypothetical children in a tent had ruined things. He found him on one of the logs by the fire having a mug filled with beer by Sera and sat down next to him. Blackwall passed him a mug and started to ask him about the events of the day, and with his other hand Bull slipped it along the small of Dorian's back, glad to feel that Dorian leaned in toward him minutely, relaxing under his hand.

“ **The circumstances surrounding your birth are not as important as the opportunity to live life.” - Lailah Gifty Akita**


End file.
